Today, I want to draw in closer to ‘Rock in Opposition’ and outline what it is –or was. So, this post is something of a rough n’ ready primer. Those that are already familiar with Rock in Opposition can sit this one out and look forward to the next post, which will look back and celebrate the 1981 Raygun Commemorative Recommended Records catalogue.

So, to begin at the beginning, one might jump back to March 12, 1978. This was the date of the first Rock in Opposition festival, held in London, England at the New London Theatre, and as such was the first public unveiling of Rock in Opposition. The festival was the first sprouting of a new tree, but the tree already had roots; the life of the oppositional tree had taken root underground and out of sight before March 12 ever rolled around.

As the 1970s unfolded, the English band Henry Cow increasingly organized its touring schedule around mainland Europe. Back home in the UK, audiences were largely uninterested in their existence, primarily because they were unaware of their existence. The radicalized experimentation of Henry Cow’s contemporary rock-art didn’t fit well into the commercial categories that the corporate record industry was trying to nurture and develop. Consequently, Henry Cow, and bands like them, were filed in a bottom drawer and rarely saw the light of day. Virgin Records was to eventually drop Henry Cow from their roster because the Cows were not generating enough income for Virgin to warrant any substantial promotion. These cows were not cash cows. As a further consequence, Henry Cow began to take their own affairs into their own hands and started to carve out small networks and personal contacts around Europe on their own. These networks and contacts were inevitably forged with other bands who were also ‘not fitting’ neatly into the categories being developed, marketed and promoted by corporate industry. The ensuing result was that a small grouping of bands and like-minded co-conspirators were able to circumvent the corporate industry altogether and record, perform and distribute their music as they intended it, free of the programming dictates and ‘artist and repertoire’ concerns of a large record company. Remember that this is transpiring before the DIY ethos of the punk and new wave movements had washed in.

And so it was, on March 12, 1978, that the initiatives and cooperative efforts of these ‘outside’ bands coalesced into a full blown festival (called ‘Rock in Opposition’) and subsequently a functioning collective. The five bands that performed at this first festival were Henry Cow, Samlas Mammas Manna (from Sweden), Etron Fou Leloublan (from France), Stormy Six (from Italy), and UniversZero (from Belgium). It’s difficult to describe this ‘Rock in Opposition’ music, as it pertained to these five groups, precisely because the groups were not musically homogeneous. One could argue that the similarities they did share were more political and social in character than musical, except to say that musically each group was steeped in its own national cultural character rather than draped in the Anglo-American garb prevalent in the corporate commercial music world. I suppose that this too, however, could be counted as a political trait rather than a musical one.

Following the festival, the bands continued to assist each other by setting up tours and contacts for each other in their respective countries. Then, in December of 1978, members of the five bands gathered together at Sunrise Studios in Switzerland (where a good number of records by Rock in Opposition bands were recorded) to discuss possibilities for the future. It was here that a sense of a formalized collective took shape. It was decided that new groups could be admitted into the collective under the following conditions – and here I am being skeletal: 1) musical excellence, as determined by the collective, 2) working outside the established, corporate music industry, 3) bearing a social commitment to rock music. Given these conditions, three new bands were admitted into the Rock in Opposition collective. They were Aksak Maboul, the Art Bears and Art Zoyd. By this time, Henry Cow had split up, so the collective stood at seven members. A second festival was held in late April-early May,1979 in Milan, Italy, at which all seven bands performed.

Following the festival in Milan, the various member groups continued to assist each other in securing gigs and stayed in touch. But, since all of the bands involved were busy and heavily involved in their respective musical projects, the formalized aspects of being a collective began to loosen. I believe the Milan festival was the last time all of the RIO groups would be in attendance. In the words of Chris Cutler (Henry Cow, Art Bears), by the end of 1979 Rock in Opposition as a formal collective had slowly slipped away.

The formal life of the Rock in Opposition movement, then, was relatively short. The name, however, would take on a life of its own and be used in various ways, usually to designate a particular kind of music, almost as if Rock in Opposition had been a genre. Bands such as Guapo, Thinking Plague, Present, or Miriodor have all been referred to as Rock in Opposition. Actually, many “progressive rock” bands exhibiting avant garde or experimental tendencies get labeled “RIO.” So, in the end, Rock in Opposition, or “RIO”, floats free, unhinged from the collective which originally ushered it into existence, and detached from any articulated program of social and political concerns, which is what sparked the original collective into being in the first place.

Having said that, a recent annual Rock in Opposition festival in Carmaux, France seems to have picked up the torch and some of the rhetoric of the early manifestoes. There are bands emerging who have been nurtured by the music of the early Rock in Opposition bands, and it doesn’t hurt the cause that there have been recent re-stagings of the Art Bears, a resurgence of UniversZero and CD archival releases by bands with extended family links like The Work, Picchio Dal Pozzo and Radar Favourites. From all of these, old threads may be picked up anew.

For those wanting to investigate Rock in Opposition and its history in greater detail, a more substantial and authoritative account can be found at ccutler.com (click on ‘interviews’). Also, back in 1979, the long-gone Impetus magazine devoted an entire issue (#9) to Rock in Opposition and the five original groups which constituted the collective. Good luck finding that though.

Discovering the Art Bears’ Winter Songs (1978) and Henry Cow’s Western Culture (1979) was a ground zero experience for me.

Back in the late 70s, I had on occasion come across Henry Cow in print and they always sounded interesting. They were on my list of groups to check out — if I could ever find one of their records. I had never even seen one before. I had also heard of the Art Bears. They were an offshoot of Henry Cow and one of their albums received a 5 star review in Downbeat magazine. They were also on my list of groups to check out — if I could ever find one of their records.

I was living in Victoria, BC in the late 70s, but would occasionally take the ferry over to Vancouver for some record shopping. On my very first expedition to the legendary, but now extinct, Black Swan Records, I walked away with both the Art Bears’ Winter Songs and Henry Cow’s Western Culture. Hearing these two records was nothing short of a revelation. So dramatic was my reaction to hearing these two records that I started carting off most of my record collection to the local used record store in Victoria. At a stroke, I turned the page on a lot of the music I had been listening to. The Art Bears and Henry Cow killed my record collection!

Shortly after buying the albums, I learned of their involvement in Rock in Opposition, a collective instigated by Henry Cow and which also included bands Samlas Mammas Manna from Sweden, Univers Zero from Belgium, Etron Fou Leloublan from France and Stormy Six from Italy. It was later expanded to include the Art Bears, Art Zoyd and Aksak Maboul. The Rock in Opposition groups existed outside of the recording industry and its marketing and distribution networks. (No wonder I could never find any of their records). Their uncompromising approaches and refusal to fit themselves into market-friendly musical forms virtually guaranteed that the industry would not be interested in them. They therefore banded together and created their own network to help each other set up tours, release records and find new audiences. Through learning about Rock in Opposition, I developed a greater understanding of the political economy of the recording industry, and of the consequences for groups who were unable to, or chose not to, work within the parameters of the industry. Discovering the Art Bears and Henry Cow, then, led to a politicization of music for me. As a direct result, it wasn’t long before I left my job at a major record retailer just because I didn’t want to be a cog in the workings of the industry. I also shifted the bulk of my record shopping to independent record shops and labels.

As well, my interest in philosophy and history developed as a result of being engaged in these social and cultural issues. This eventually led to attending college courses and going on to university. The music and working examples of these two bands, and then the other bands involved in Rock in Opposition, affected my ideas of the social world and my place in it. Life itself became different after the Art Bears & Henry Cow. When I look back and contemplate this time of my life (from a comfy armchair, espresso in hand), I sometimes think of George Bailey in It’s A Wonderful Life. Where would I be today if I never heard Winter Songs or Western Culture? Who would I be?

The above is an excerpt from the forthcoming book, Music Is Rapid Transportation …from the Beatles to Xenakis, available soon from Charivari Press.